Rooting and Custom ROM

[Yourdogsdead]

I know nobody has the phone yet, but I am not familiar with Motorola Hardware. If I understand this correctly, you can root the phone but you cannot install custom ROM's? Thanks for any clarification.

 

[Scottish]

I would like some clarification on this point, too.

I am very interested in this phone due to the hardware specs, but if I am restricted from being able to install a custom ROM, that might be a dealbreaker.

I prefer to stick with the custom ROM during the warranty period to prevent voiding said warranty, but I want to know the option is there.

I've heard varying explanations for what exactly Motorola does to lock it down, so a thorough explanation would be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks,
Scott

 

[quetzalcoatl]

So far every locked bootloader that moto has released has been worked around. So far the only thing that has been prevented is custom kernals. But I know with the next potential upgrade for the droid x one of the devs has said publicly that he not been able to find away to root the phone. Which I must say is scary.

 

[terpitude71]

give hackers time, and they will always find a way. i remember the root skepticism before the X came out, and we had root within weeks.

as quetzalcoatl mentioned above, you wont see custom kernals, which means seeing something like cyanogenmod wont be possible, but i would bet that youll see custom roms at some point.

 

[dvation]

So far every locked bootloader that moto has released has been worked around. So far the only thing that has been prevented is custom kernals. But I know with the next potential upgrade for the droid x one of the devs has said publicly that he not been able to find away to root the phone. Which I must say is scary.

"worked around" - right, the encrypted bootloader was never defeated but root was achieved using other exploits. By not being able to break bootloader encryption, you can't change the kernel which means what customization you'll see from custom roms will be very limited (removing blur). This is the case with the DX.

 

[corydunbar]

i'm wondering whether the attrix has a locked bootloader because the e-fuse chip was a part of the TI OMAP chipset. I don't believe the nvidia tegra 2 has an e-fuse. But motorola may have added it along side the tegra 2. If so, i'll be voting with my wallet on something a little more free.

 

[phro321]

Has anyone rooted yet? And if so why do it now?

 

[dopestar]

developers show some MAC some love and make a program to root my precious Atrix via MAC

 

[Duvi]

aside from loading non-marketplace apps, not sure i'll need to root it.

we'll see...

 

[enigma2u]

help me plz...

hello all i need help please!!! i have done all listed above and well once i click on root i get this message "An unhandled exception has occurred in your application. If you click Continue, the application will ignore this error and attempt to continue. If you click Quit, the application will be shut down immediately"...what am i doing wrong should i click continue or what ...i am just afraid to mess up my new phone right away that would suck big time...i am running windows 7 on a samsung laptop rv511...someone please help me :-(

 

[phro321]

rooted, now I try to find apps but just cant. No big deal I'll just keep looking.

 

[.46caliber]

There are plenty of root access apps in the Market.

As pointed out earlier, Motorola has not built a device that developers were unable to ROM. Koush developed a bootstrap application that allowed some circumvention of Motorola's attempts to stop this and allowed custom recoveries and ROMs to be installed on devices like the Droid X and Droid 2.

The locked bootloader prevents installing a kernel that is not Motorola signed. The signature is protected by, as I understand it, a very over-the-top level of encryption. Without the ability to load a custom kernel, the core of the operating system, a ROM is somewhat limited. CyanogenMod is one of the most popular and widely available ROMs. Since it is built with a custom kernel, it cannot be ported to a Droid X or Droid 2 or Droid Pro in it's current state.

Motorola hinted at perhaps looking into building future devices that were more "open" and developer friendly. I have yet to see any news about the lockdown status of the Atrix or Bionic. Even without the TI OMAP chipset security measures, it may be possible for Motorola to lock the bootloader on their new Nvidia Tegra 2 chipset devices.

EDIT: The closest thing I found to an official statement from Motorola can be found in the comments of this Moto video on YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4gpOQDcn7c&feature=youtu.be

 

[pato]

Designgears of xda-developers announces first Atrix 4g ROM

Appears the guys over at xda-developers have got the first custom ROM working. Check out the URL below.


[ROM] Adeo v0.1 (REDUX) - xda-developers

 

[sniffs]

People need to be made clear on what a locked bootloader does and doesn't do.

A locked bootloader means you can't install a kernel other than what is currently on there unless it's signed by Motorola. This means you can't take an AOSP release from Google and flash a newer release or newer Bekit kernel on the device, that's it. This is currently how the DroidX is.

You CAN however, take the current kernel and mod the user interface to look like whatever you want.. Custom ROM's based on the current installed kernel work fine and always will.

The Original Droid 1 has an unlocked bootloader, which allows you to flash whatever release you can get on it. I currently have a CM7-nightly Gingerbread kernel on it.

That's pretty much it in a nutshell. (there's more too it such as recovery, etc.. but for basic purposes, this should explain it)

Once root is attained, you can start the modding.

 

[irishtexmex]

I think the end-all answer most average people here are looking for is whether or not we'll be able to have ROMs that overclock and/or increase battery life. Will either of those be possible with the Moto kernal but custom roms?